The world's first national database of shoe imprints from crime scenes is being launched by the UK's Forensic Science Service next month. Police hope that it will allow them to link the scenes of unsolved crimes to suspects more quickly, and link crimes carried out by the same person.

The database will hold detailed information about the shoes of thousands of suspects and about shoe marks found at all crime scenes across the country. Shoe marks are the second most common type of evidence found by the police after DNA, and unique patterns of wear and scuffing make it possible to match a mark to an individual shoe, rather like a fingerprint.

As with the police national DNA database, which holds DNA profiles of more than 3 million people, the Footwear Intelligence Tool will be updated daily with new shoe profiles and crime scene marks. Software then automatically looks for matches which can later be confirmed by forensic scientists.

Under laws enacted last year, even arrested suspects who are not charged can have a shoe profile recorded. This would involve photographing the shoe and making an ink impression of the sole. The database will be officially launched on February 15 and rolled out nationally in March.

Using footprints to catch criminals is not new. But the database should offer police new leads in hard to crack cases, according to Jim Fraser, director of the centre for forensic science at the University of Strathclyde. "The point about the database is that it provides you potentially with huge amounts of intelligence and linkages [between crimes]. You simply can't do that if you don't have all the data in one place."

He said that footwear marks were found at around 40% of crime scenes, so there was potentially a lot of information to bring together. Most are not clean boot marks in fresh mud, but more subtle impressions that cannot be seen with the naked eye and may have to be enhanced using UV light. It is even possible to recover a shoe impression from a carpet or a dead body.

But although a footmark can show that a criminal had visited a burgled house, for example, it would almost always be used with other evidence. "If the shoe mark leads you to an individual and you find the stolen property then the case might well be much more straightforward," Prof Fraser added.